A Model to Manage Cooperative Project Risks to Create Knowledge and Drive Sustainable Business
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sustainability Article A Model to Manage Cooperative Project Risks to Create Knowledge and Drive Sustainable Business Marco Nunes 1,* , António Abreu 2,3,* and Célia Saraiva 4 1 Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Beira Interior, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, 1959-007 Lisbon, Portugal 3 CTS Uninova, Centre of Technology and Systems, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal 4 Department of Science and Technology, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] or [email protected] (M.N.); [email protected] (A.A.) Abstract: Efficient cooperation between organizations across all the phases of a project lifecycle is a critical factor to increase the chances of project success and drive sustainable business. However, and according to research, despite the large benefits that efficient organizational cooperation provides to organizations, they are still often reluctant to engage in cooperative partnerships. The reviewed literature argues that the major reason for such a trend is due to the lack of efficient and actionable supportive models to manage organizational cooperative risks. In this work we propose a model to efficiently support the management of organizational cooperative risks in project environments. The model, MCPx (management of cooperative projects), was developed based on four critical scientific pillars, (1) project risk management, (2) cooperative networks, (3) social network analysis, and (4) business intelligence architecture, and will analyze in a quantitative way how project cooperative behaviors evolve across a bounded time period, and to which extent they can turn into a cooperative Citation: Nunes, M.; Abreu, A.; project risk (essentially potential threats). For this matter, the MCPx model will quantitatively analyze Saraiva, C. A Model to Manage five key project cooperative behavioral dimensions, (1) communication, (2) information sharing, (3) Cooperative Project Risks to Create trust, (4) problem solving and (5) decision making, which show how dynamic interactions between Knowledge and Drive Sustainable project stakeholders evolve across time. The implementation and functioning principles of the MCPx Business. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5798. model are illustrated with a case study. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115798 Keywords: project management; risk management; social network analysis; cooperative networks; Academic Editor: Jui-Sheng business intelligence; project cooperative risks; knowledge creation; sustainable business (Rayson) Chou Received: 19 April 2021 Accepted: 19 May 2021 1. Introduction Published: 21 May 2021 In today’s complex, turbulent, and unpredictable business landscape, if organizations Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral want to achieve success, meet market needs and demands, or even just survive, they must with regard to jurisdictional claims in develop strategies that boost performance and innovation [1,2]. The literature argues published maps and institutional affil- that both innovation and performance strongly depend on how an organization’s C suit iations. manages and motivates their employees to overcome daily challenges, such as different cultures, different time zones, different geographic locations, or different functions, while simultaneously nurturing the capacity and will to continuously learn and adapt [1,3]. The literature also shows that the adoption of an ambidextrous leadership style (characterized Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. by the exploitation of present conditions to optimize current business model operations, Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. while simultaneously exploring new opportunities that contribute to redefining business This article is an open access article models by taking decisions in a pioneering, risky way) increases the chances of achiev- distributed under the terms and ing sustainable competitive advantages [4,5]. In addition, the literature shows that the conditions of the Creative Commons ability to work in cooperative networks in both organizational and individual levels is a Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// critical factor for an organization to achieve success and generate actionable and unique creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ knowledge [2,6–8]. In fact, the latest research in organizational theory and management 4.0/). Sustainability 2021, 13, 5798. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115798 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2021, 13, 5798 2 of 28 argues that although individual knowledge and skills are important, the ability to work in cooperative networks is almost always twice as critical to achieve success [6–8]. Among several reasons, what makes organizations engage in cooperative networks with other organizations such as business partners, institutions, or universities, just to name a few, is the possibility they have to access the necessary resources (human, competencies, financial, logistic and so on) to properly respond to the increasing and complex market demands [8]. However, research shows that despite the benefits that cooperative networks can bring to organizations, such as the open innovation model [9], they are not engaging in it as much as it would be expected [10]. According to several literature reviews, the reason for such a trend is the lack of effective and efficient supportive models to manage such partnership types [8,11,12]. This work presents a heuristic model that aims at the efficient management of organi- zational cooperative networks, as a contribution to reduce the lack of existing supportive models to manage organizational cooperation. The proposed heuristic model, named MCPx (which stands for management of cooperative projects) was developed based on four essential scientific pillars: (1) project risk management, (2) cooperative networks, (3) social network analysis, and (4) business intelligence, as illustrated in Figure1. Figure 1. The four critical scientific pillars that support the MCPx model. Concretely, the MCPx model quantitatively measures five key project cooperative behavioral dimensions as they emerge, develop and eventually disappear or continue within a bounded period of time, within a project social network. The five key project coop- erative behavioral dimensions are: (1) communication, which identifies who communicates with whom related to project information, (2) information sharing, which identifies who shares with whom project-related information, (3) trust, which identifies who trusts whom regarding delicate project subjects, (4) problem solving, which identifies whom people go to in order to get support, advice or project-related information so that they can do their job, and (5) decision making, which identifies who usually makes decisions regarding project-related tasks and activities. Table1 illustrates the individual contributions of each one of the four critical scientific pillars that support the development of the proposed model in this work. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5798 3 of 28 Table 1. Four critical pillars that support the development of the MCPx model. Scientific Pillars Brief Description Regarding Individual Contributions Contributes with the definitions and structure of a typical project (lifecycle, phases, and so on) according to the Project Project Risk Management Management Institute [13], and with the definitions and approach process of the risk management standard process according to the International Organization for Standardization [14]. Contributes with the definitions, importance, and key factors regarding cooperation principles between organizations. This Cooperative Networks work assumes the cooperative principle of performing joint work according to [11]. Provides the tools and techniques (essentially centrality metrics such as in-degree, out-degree, density, average degree, closeness and so on, based on the graph theory) which will quantitatively Social Network Analysis measure the five key project cooperative behavioral dimensions that emerge and evolve as organizations cooperate to deliver projects. Contributes with the typical organizational business intelligence architecture (collecting, transforming, analysing data and Business Intelligence reporting) that enables organizations to perform business data analysis in a timely and accurate manner so that they can take more data-informed decisions. 1.1. Relevance and Novelty of the Conducted Research in This Work The research conducted in this work addresses the problem of the lack of effective models to manage cooperation between organizations while they deliver projects. The research conducted in this work resulted in a heuristic model that contributes to answer the following research question: To what extent does cooperation between organizations that work together across all the phases of a project lifecycle impact project tasks and activities, and ultimately the global project outcome? Having the research question along this line of thought, it can be concluded that the proposed model in this work directly addresses organizational cooperative project risks, namely behavioral cooperative risks, as mentioned before. The relevance of the conducted research in this work can be divided into four different dimensions. First, and as the main objective of the research conducted in this work is the devel- opment of a heuristic model (the MCPx model), to help organizations to identify and efficiently manage cooperative project